Showing posts with label linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linux. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Old Yet Very Funny!

If you like good old animated humor, I've got something for you to see!

It's been a while since I've seen these myself, but lately I have been watching them over, and over.( I find myself quoting them quite a bit.)

If your looking for a good laugh, and a quick break..... look no further....Here you'll find the classic, Steve The Super Villain, and Blurbfest.
Some of you may remember, and some of you may not......All I can say is go check it out! You'll be quoting it too!

Side Note:
Something kinda related to Blurbfest is talkit. Talkit can provide hours of humorous entertainment!! Get it here

Until then....enjoy

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Cool And Sexy!!! The PICO-ITX

For anyone out there looking for a cool little computer...you should check this out.


The Pico is a low powered, full computer with all the bells and whistles. Dont believe me....check out the Specs.

Processor VIA 1 GHz C7
Chipset VIA VX700
System Memory 1 DDR2 533 SO-DIMM Up to 1GB memory size
VGA Integrated VIA UniChrome ProII 3D/2D AGP Graphics with MPEG-2/MPEG-4 and WMV9 Video Decoding Accelerator
Expansion Slots None
Onboard IDE ATA 133 (2.0 mm 44-pin pin header)
Onboard Serial ATA 1 SATA connector
Onboard LAN VIA VT6106S 10/100
Onboard Audio VIA VT1708A HD audio codec
Onboard TV Out Optional VT1625M add-on card (not included)
Back Panel I/O 1 LAN port 1 VGA port
Onboard I/O Connectors 1 USB 2.0 pin header for 4 additional USB ports 1 RS-232 COM pin header 1 LVDS/DVI pin header 1 Multimedia connector; supports TV-out, Video Capture Port, and LPC interfaces 1 PS2 mouse/keyboard pin header 1 Fan pin header 1 Audio connector: line-out, line-in, mic-in, S/PDIF-in, & 7.1 channel audio output 1 Pico-ITX power connector
BIOS Award BIOS 4/8Mb flash memory
System Monitoring & Management CPU temperature monitoring, Watchdog timer, Wake on LAN, Keyboard power on, Timer power on System power management AC power failure recovery
Operating Temperature 0° ~ 50°C
Operating Humidity 0% ~ 95% (relative humidity; non-condensing)
Form Factor Pico-ITX (10cm x 7.2cm)
Includes ATA 133 flat cable USB pin header cable with 4 USB 2.0 ports & screws Ribbon power cable 1 PS2 mouse & keyboard cable 1 RS-232 COM port cable & screws 1 DVI cable Driver/utility CD


You really need to see one up close to appreciate it.
For any one interested in getting one of these bad boys, check out LogicSupply. They can set you up!

So What Would You Do With It?

Car Project

There's a few projects I'd like to play around with in the near future. One being for my car!

LinuxIce/OpenIce is a nice little Disto made for cars. It has a lot of nice little features that would please any tech lover out there!

At one point I was involved with the project, but I had to stop due to life throwing a few speed bumps.

LinuxIce/OpenIce should run on the Pico fine, and the OS is a great in car solution for entertainment/GPS, and business.

If you are interested in the LinuxIce/OpenIce project, why don't ya join them....They are friendly bunch and very helpful. (they could always use a little help)
If you happen to stop by, tell them bazz/grumpy247 said hi!

I think the car project for me will have to take a backseat until VIA comes out with the Nano for the Pico. Ooohhh Yeahhhh!!

Home Entertainment System.

One other project I want to do, (and I have started a bit) is use the Pico for a Home entertainment system.

Using Ubuntu, Elisa, Wii remote, and the HP Media Vault makes this a nice solution for all your media needs.....(as long as it works)

I'll give you just a taste of what I have done so far....

I bought the Pico and the case over at LogicSupply.
A friend and I built the Wii sensor bar using this Howto.

BTW. The guy who helped me build the sensor bar would be interested in building these to sell if anyone is interested. If you are, just leave a comment.

The HP Media Vault runs FireFly, so media is streamed to the PICO. All this in theory is controllable with the wii remote.

I'm not going to write about this project too much, I just wanted to give you a taste of what I'm doing.....I'm sure you can see where it is going!



Thin-Client

One other project I've used these badboys on is the LTSP thin-clients project....they make awesome little thin-clients!

If you are looking for some thin-client solutions and a great community to give you a hand, look over here.

NOTE: Unfortunately I am no longer doing anything with LTSP; so I wont be much help.

Thats It For Now!

I highly suggest you play with a Pico if you can.
Very cool little Machines!

If you have an idea how you would use them, lets hear it!

Friday, August 15, 2008

Content and Storage With The HP MV2120/5150

Thought I'd take a few minutes to write about the HP MV2120/HP5150.



HP MediaVault 2120

Note: The HP MV2120 and MV5150 are the same hardware. The difference is the MV5150 comes with two 750G drives and software to do hard drive backups.

The HP2120 is a very sexy piece of hardware. Dont get me wrong functionality is the most important, but sexy is nice.

So What Can You Say About The MediaVaul?

Well.... Its a cool little machine. It uses very little energy, solid, and serves my needs.

So Whats Under The Hood?

It is capable of holding up to 4 Terabyte of storage non RAID, uses a 500 MHz ARM9 processor (so that is where the energy savings come in.) It runs the 2.6 Linux kernel, with 128 MB of Internal Memory.

Currently I am running a 1 Tera byte RAID1 MV2.

So What Can It Do?

Other the hold lots of media...
The MV2 runs something called firefly that enables it to stream music to iTunes and other music players. (It will also stream Videos, and Pictures)

The MV straight out of the box doesn't do to much (from a geek point of view). You can however install IPKG to install additional packages that add functionality. Its fairly hackable.

What's The MediaValt capable of:

Cheap storage
Stable
remote access through web interface
remote access and configuration via SSH
Photo Share
Streaming Media
RAID 1

What it is not:

Fast
bug free (there are a few bugs that still need to be worked out.)
A full bowen OS.....well depends how daring you are!
Rumor has it the MV2 is now able of run a full Debian OS. Check it out here and here
Enterprise hardware

So Why Did You Buy One?

Before I bought the MV2 I had 2 Linux servers running 24 7. One for my home, and the other was a backup system for the main server.

With the MV2 in hand I retired the 2 Linux servers. This helped me save time (Less administration) and money (Less energy).

The MV2 is nowheres near as fast as the Linux server per upload/download, but it does the job all the same.

So Whats Next?

In the somewhat near future theres a few hack projects that I'd like to do. It will require additional hardware and involve the MV2. I dont want to let the cat out of the bag yet, so I'll write about those when the time comes..

Here is a nice little review of the MV5150 with some screen shots of the web interface.